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He needed answers that weren’t available on the internet.

Nothing but tangled stories about the nice kind of banshees, the haunting, ghostly sort, and not much about wyverns. Nothing that tied it together.

Nothing that came close to explaining what had happened to Eryn. And why the fuck something had come after her—not him—only hours after he’d killed two wyverns.

“Eryn?”

Her nose scrunched.

“Talk to me,” he urged, keeping his tone as gentle as the murmuring ocean waves in the distance.

The notch between her eyebrows deepened. Improvement, maybe, she wasn’t nearly the limp noodle she’d been at midnight, but was now a sloth latched onto him.

“You can sleep as long as you need, but I need to know what happened,” he said softly. “I need to know that you’re okay.”

“Vann?” The way she said his name, raspy, hopeful, clutched tight in his chest until he couldn’t catch his breath.

“I’m here,” he said gently.

“I’m…” Her brow scrunched into a full scowl. Her shoulders shifted, her hips and knees following the testing movement. “I’m fine,” she groaned, then slowly opened her eyes and sealed them shut again.

“Prove it.” He brushed her hair off her forehead.

Eyes opening like a rusted-shut door, she finally met his gaze. Hazed, but aware.

After a long breath in and out, her focus settled.

Her gaze shifted down his bare chest, his lazily buttoned jeans… the unfamiliar bed, the starkly empty bedroom overlooking the ocean. Her face flushed pink.

“Not exactly how I envisioned spending the night with you.” He glanced down at himself, and back at her. He pushed to sit up in the bed.

Eryn shifted to sit next to him, but settled like a sandbag. “I’m fine.”

With only a quirk of an eyebrow, he met her look.

“I need to go home and take a shower and freshen up.”

Fat chance he was leaving her alone right now.

“I swear, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. That…” Fuck. How was she so calm? Didn’t she know something terrifying had attacked her? “What exactly happened?”

A notch dug deep between her eyebrows. She sat up and rubbed her hands over her face. “I… I was hardly even awake. Someone snuck out the window, and I screamed. I must have gone vagal.”

“Gone vagal?”

“Yeah. You know. Vasovagal syncope. Someone broke in, and I got scared and fainted.” She leaned against the wall, drawing her legs in while she seemed to review it all in her mind. Did she honestly believe that shit? He’d heard worse explanations that victims of demons had come up with to explain what they couldn’t understand.

“This is my fault, Eryn. I am so sorry.”

“It was a break-in. People break into people’s homes. That doesn’t mean your work came after me.”

“Why would someone break into your apartment?”

“Maybe a patient was angry with me. Or a family member didn’t like Lexi’s findings on autopsy. How should I know?”

He slid out and stood next to the bed. “That wasn’t a normal break-in. That was… intentional, and it was my fault. I’m so sorry.” After the attacks, the wyverns, the ear-splitting scream?